Agricultural Revolution

Climate Change

A process of global warming began 16 thousand years ago and brought an end to the ice age. This global warming led to a change in landscape, climate, and way of life for the people of the Neolithic area. As the weather warmed around the world, the ice flows and glaciers began to melt and left behind rivers and lakes, such as the great lakes. The climate also warmed, which meant that many of the plants and animals that thrived during the ice age did not survive. This change in climate gave rise to a variety of different plants, especially cereal grasses. Since many of the animals that were being hunted during the ice age, such as the mammoth, mastodon, and woolly rhino, had died off, people were forced to eat other things, such as cows, pigs, and cereal crops. The reason that more edible plants were around, was because of the newly formed rivers and lakes which gave rise to more fertile land.

Plant Domestication

Beginning in the Fertile Crescent and separately elsewhere around the world, humans began to cultivate specific varieties of plants - specifically cereals such as wheat, millet, and barley, as well as lentils, peas, and chickpeas, and flax. The significance of these "founders crops" and early understanding of crops is that they formed the very early basis for higher nutrition crops that created surplus foods, early elements of specialization, and complex societies.

Food Storage

Being able to store food in a dry place in such a way that it isn't stolen by animals or doesn't rot because of moisture is a key to generating surplus food. One of the earliest known examples is at the settlement of Dhra. It's significance is that without the ability to successfully store food, people are forced to gather food all year round. Successful food storage enables societies to generate surpluses.

Sago Tree

Found in Papua New Guinea, the sago was a principle source of food for hunter/gatherers. But given how hard it was to process (3 days of work), and it's relatively low nutritional value - fewer calories and protein than cereal grains found in the Fertile Crescent - it couldn't support large populations. The significance is that Sago is an example of a relatively plentiful food source in a region that did not provide enough nutrition to expand the population - to create surpluses that would enable specialization and the creation of villages and towns.

How does geography impact when people move from hunting and gathering to farming.

Geography affects why people in certain regions adopted farming before others. Depending on where some people were located, there were types of food - plants and animals - that could be grown and domesticated. For example people located in the Fertile Crescent were able to start farming and harvesting because there was wheat and barley available to them, as well as fertile soil and an agreeable climate for plant growth. These plants were easily domesticated and had a relatively high amount of protein and carbohydrates. Other areas, such as New Guinea, had no easily domesticated plants that had similar nutritional profiles. Consequently, the people of New Guinea had to work harder to find food and were not able to create surpluses. This is important because it enables us to better understand that some countries grew their populations faster and developed complex civilizations because they had advantages based on *where* they were, not *who* they were.

Hunter-Gatherers

Hunting and gathering was humanity's first and most successful adaptation, occupying at least 90 percent of human history, from 1.8 million years ago until 12,000 years ago, all humans lived this way. Following the invention of agriculture, hunter-gatherers have been displaced or conquered by farming or pastoralist groups in most parts of the world. Hunter/gatherers are significant because of how long they managed to stay in existence and because that approach to getting food preceded the current approach.

Dhra

In the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea (in modern day Jordan), Dhra is the site of one of the earliest examples of humans settling down in a small village of 40-50 people - about 11,500 BP. One of the key findings at Dhra was what they think was a granary, a place to store and keep dry, grains. The significance of Dhra is simply that it is one of the earliest known examples of humans moving from hunting/gathering to settled life - and the key to that may have been the development of a place to safely store grain and keep it dry so that it doesn't spoil.

Animal Domestication

Of all the animals available, only 14 made suitable candidates for domestication. Characteristics include: animals that can start giving birth in their first or second years; have one or maybe two offspring a year, so they're productivity is actually high. Behaviorally they need to be social animals, meaning that the males and the females and the young all live together as a group, and they also have an internal social hierarchy, which means that if humans can control the leader, then they will also gain control over the whole herd or whole flock.

Specialization of labor

Specialization of labor is when humans are able to focus on one kind or work that enables them to become a specialist in that kind of work - as opposed to a general farmer or hunter. Specialization, we believe, began to appear when there was enough food in a small group living together to enable a few of the people to focus on something that was not directly related to farming or finding food. It's significance lies in the fact that when people had time to develop and focus on areas of specialty, more complex societies could emerge that form the basis for our own highly specialized, interconnected society.

Surplus Food

Surplus food began to emerge when humans started to domesticate plants and animals during the Agricultural Revolution. It's significance was that it enabled a few people at first (more later) to specialize in certain types of work and laid the basis for complex societies.

Hearths and diffusion of Agriculture

The Fertile Crescent (11,000 BP), the Yangtze and Yellow River basins (9,000 BP) and the New Guinea Highlands (9,000-6,000 BP), Central Mexico (5,000-4,000 BP), Northern South America (5,000-4,000 BP), sub-Saharan Africa (5,000-4,000 BP, exact location unknown), eastern North America (4,000-3,000 BP)

Fertile Crescent

The Fertile Crescent is most famous for its sites related to the origins of agriculture in what is today known as the Middle East. Its significance is based on the fact that the western zone around the Jordan and upper Euphrates rivers gave rise to the first known Neolithic farming settlements which date to around 9,000 BC. The Fertile Crescent was home to the eight Neolithic founder crops important in early agriculture (i.e. wild progenitors to emmer wheat, einkorn, barley, flax, chick pea, pea, lentil, bitter vetch), and four of the five most important species of domesticated animals—cows, goats, sheep, and pigs—and the fifth species, the horse, lived nearby.

Neolithic Revolution

The Neolithic Revolution or the Agricultural Revolution, was the wide-scale transition of many human cultures from a lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of agriculture and settlement, allowing the ability to support an increasingly large population. Archaeological data indicates that the domestication of various types of plants and animals evolved in separate locations worldwide around 12,000 years ago. It was the world's first historically verifiable revolution in agriculture.

Decline in wild animal population

The population of wild animals that humans could hunt and eat declined prior to the agricultural revolution. It is believed this happened as a result of a number of factors including better tools for hunting led to more successful hunting, as populations slowly grew more people were hunting, and climate change changed habitats. The significance is that with fewer animals available for hunting, humans looked to other sources of food - making farming a more attractive possibility.

New Technologies

The shift to farming brought a number of new approaches and technologies including irrigation and plant breeding (domestication), and food storage. The significance of these technologies is simply that they largely enabled the agricultural revolution.

Reasons to become a Farmer

There is no clear answer, only theories. Different theories place the focus on different elements: that there was a decline in availability of wild foods - fewer animals available to hunt, that the warmer climate led to the appearance of cereal grasses (like wheat, millet, barley), that a rise in the human population forced people to look to planting food. The significance of the possible reasons is simply that farming didn't simply appear, but arose in response to various conditions based on region one examines. Farming was a more difficult way of life, and the change was likely not by choice. This is important information of why people moved out from hunting/gathering and began farming.